SaaStr expands to NYC, here’s why.

I’m excited to announce I have joined the SaaStr Fund as a Venture Partner in NYC. To introduce myself, I spent 5 years in operating roles in BD/Sales/Marketing at two different startups, including some time at Box in its very early days. Over the last few years, I have been an investor and advisor to SaaS companies, both personally and through Acceleprise, a SaaS-focused accelerator I started in San Francisco. My family and I recently moved to the NYC area, and I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity ahead.

Here are 5 reasons it makes sense to plant the SaaStr flag in NYC:

Great SaaS companies are being built everywhere. The SaaStr Annual in February had 10K+ people attend across thousands of companies and it will probably double next year. This year, 78% came from outside the Bay Area, with hundreds from NYC. Great SaaS founders & companies are being built all over the world, and as the largest community for SaaS founders, we think it makes sense to be on both coasts.

VCs in NYC are investing in SaaS more than anything else. According to this post by Shai Goldman in December 2016, SaaS was the most invested in sector by VCs in NYC in 2016. There is a relatively early, but growing, SaaS movement happening in NYC and we are excited to do our part in pushing it forward.

NYC is well positioned to drive the next generation of great vertical SaaS companies. With arguably the most diverse set of industries of any other city, it provides unprecedented access to large enterprise customers and high quality talent with specific industry domain experience. Combine that with a growing number of SaaS companies getting to meaningful scale and the VP level talent that develops along with those companies, the number of break out SaaS companies in NYC is going to accelerate.

The demand from the SaaStr community is there. We did a SaaStr Social event in NYC back in 2014 at Work-Bench and the demand for it even then was higher than we expected. Since then the SaaStr community and the SaaS ecosystem in general have grown a lot. It’s time for us to be in NYC more permanently!

It’s New York. New Yorkers have a chip on their shoulder, are competitive as they come, and there is a clear sense of camaraderie among the tech community here. It’s going to keep getting bigger and better – and it’s happening quickly.

We are kicking things off with a SaaStr speaker series at Work-Bench on 5/2 and have two amazing speakers lined up: Matt Straz, CEO of Namely, and David Skok, GP at Matrix Partners. Keep an eye out for an invite very soon!

If you are not familiar with the SaaStr Fund, you can read more here. I’m looking to connect with relentless founders with at least 10 unaffiliated customers and great month-over-month growth. Jason has also written about what he won’t invest in, which you can read here.

Get in touch with me at mike @ saastrco dot com or on Twitter. I look forward to hearing from you!